


Of Maeglin and the Fall of Gondolin

by potatoesanddreams



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Attempted Murder-Suicide, Canonical Character Death, Fall of Gondolin, Gen, I do hope this piece works as I meant it to, Lack of Communication, Maeglin is traumatized and Idril is terrified and no one is at all okay, Pengolodh is an unreliable narrator, Reinterpretation of Maeglin's Actions, Tolkien Gen Week, Tolkien Gen Week Day 1: Family, attempted child murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25111639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potatoesanddreams/pseuds/potatoesanddreams
Summary: "...but Melko wove about him the spell of bottomless dread..." -The Fall of GondolinMaeglin did try to kill Eärendil during the Fall of Gondolin. But historians were wrong about his motivations.Written for Tolkien Gen Week, Day One: family.
Relationships: Eärendil & Idril Celebrindal, Eärendil & Maeglin | Lómion, Idril Celebrindal & Maeglin | Lómion
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54
Collections: Tolkien Gen Week 2020





	Of Maeglin and the Fall of Gondolin

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very sorry.
> 
> Notes on the Quenya used:  
> Itarillë - Idril  
> Moringotto - Morgoth  
> Valarauka - Balrog

They were screaming at each other over the noise of the battle, locked together in struggle, Eärendil wailing red-faced and tear-drenched as they dragged him back and forth between them. It was impossible that they could have made out more than one in ten of each other’s words, even had either of them had the presence of mind to try.

The warriors of the Mole stood a little away, watching in horrified silence.

Maeglin’s hair was hanging half loose of its braid, tangled and bloody, lifted sluggishly by the wind that howled along the wall. His eyes were wide enough that the whites showed all around, rolling in their sockets, glassy with raw terror. “Give him to me!” His voice cracked with the volume of his cry. “Give him to me, Itarillë, it’ll be too late –”

“– You don’t touch my son, I’m not letting you hurt my son – you’re mad, you’ve gone mad, spawn of _Moringotto, let go of him –_ ”

“– you fool, you stupid fool, there isn’t time –”

“– _let him go – you Valarauka –_ ”

“– he has to die – _please_ – Itarillë _–_ he has to die _now_ before they come for him – you don’t understand, _we have to die before_ –”

_“– give me back my baby!”_

Both of them were weeping. Maeglin’s fist was wound in Idril’s hair, and his other arm held Eärendil beneath the armpits; but Idril aimed her thumb for his eye and he had to turn his face away, and Eärendil took the opportunity to sink his teeth deep into his uncle’s wrist.

Maeglin’s words dissolved into a howl of pain, and his grip on Eärendil loosened; but as Idril wrenched her son from his grasp, Maeglin rocked all three of them sideways toward the edge of the parapet. Eärendil screamed, and Idril cried out at the sound as though she had been stabbed. She caught the lip of the wall with one hand and saved them from going over – and there were no more words now, only a desperate struggle as she tried to keep hold of Eärendil and push them back from the brink at the same time. Maeglin had her still by the hair, and he dragged her onto the wall even as her bare feet braced against the stone and Eärendil clung crying to her leg. Yet Maeglin no longer had a grip on the child, and – “Run!” Idril screamed, trying to shake off her son’s hold. “Run – run!”

He would not go at first; she had to shove him away, as best she could with one hand, while she clung to the rampart with the other. But at last he heeded her, and went dashing for the stairway that led down the side of the house to the street.

With an inarticulate cry, Maeglin let go of Idril and dove after the child. Eärendil was quick, but the folk of the Mole stood uncertain still before the stairway and would not move aside to let him through. Maeglin wrestled him back from amongst them, and murmuring desperate apologies he pinned him again beneath his arm. Yet Idril had followed Maeglin, and as he turned back toward the wall she crashed into him at a run, shoving him back against the ranks of his warriors. A few of them reached out to steady him, and slowly, Eärendil squirming in his grasp, he drove his cousin backwards. And then, rising suddenly above the general din of the battle, they heard a shout and a clamor below.

An instant later the folk of the Mole were scattering. A company of warriors was coming up the stairs. Maeglin went gray to the lips and drew his dagger – but even as he stabbed down at the child held beneath his arm, Eärendil bit him once again. Maeglin staggered. The dagger slipped in his grasp and did not strike home.

And Tuor was there. The spark of relief in Maeglin’s eyes was swallowed up by pain as the Man wrenched round his arm with a crack, and both the dagger and Eärendil fell to the stone. Eärendil leaped up and ran to Idril. Maeglin cried out, “Cousin –” and held up his good hand – and then Tuor had seized him about the waist with a roar and lifted him bodily from the ground. In a few strides he had reached the wall; and as the folk of the Mole made up their minds at last and raised their swords against the folk of the Wing, the Man threw the Elf far out over the fires that gleamed redly on the rocks below.

Idril looked up. For an instant her cousin seemed to hang suspended in the air. His eyes met hers.

And he fell.

(The look in those eyes remained stamped on her memory forever.)


End file.
